Brisbane house rents reach $700 a week while unit rents stay flat

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Brisbane's median asking rent for a house reached $700 a week in the June quarter of 2026, a record, according to the Domain Rent Report published on 8 July. The median for units stayed at $660 a week, unchanged from the March quarter.

The house figure rose 2.9 per cent over the quarter, or $20 a week, which puts the March quarter median at $680. Domain's vacancy rate for the city was 0.6 per cent in June, which the report says equals the lowest June figure in its records, set in 2022.

Houses moved, units did not

The split between houses and units is the centre of Domain's report, and Brisbane shows it clearly. A tenant looking for a house faced asking rents $20 higher than three months earlier. A tenant looking for a unit faced the same median as in March.

Each result ended or extended a run. For houses, Domain counts this as the fourth quarterly rise in a row and the strongest June quarter in three years. For units, the flat result halted a climb that had added $30 to the median over the previous two quarters.

Domain reads the flat unit result as a sign of emerging pricing constraints for landlords: rents that have reached what tenants can pay. The gap between the two medians is now $40 a week, or about $2,080 over a year of 52 weeks. A year ago it was $20, on the report's annual changes, which put houses at $650 and units at $630 in the June quarter of 2025.

Brisbane is the fifth dearest capital for houses and the third dearest for units, behind Sydney and Perth. Its house rents rose faster over the quarter than those of every capital except Sydney and Darwin. Sydney's median jumped $50 in three months, the largest quarterly rise in four years according to the ABC's report of the release.

Brisbane was not alone in its flat unit result. Unit medians did not move in Melbourne, Adelaide or Canberra either. In four of the eight capitals, then, the typical advertised unit cost the same in June as in March.

A year of rent rises, city by city

The quarterly figures show the turn; the annual ones show the distance covered. Brisbane's house median is $50 a week higher than a year ago, a rise of 7.7 per cent that Domain describes as the fastest annual pace in two years. Over 52 weeks, $50 a week is $2,600.

Four capitals sit within a percentage point of each other, between 7.1 and 7.8 per cent, and Brisbane is among them. Only Darwin is clearly ahead. Melbourne, at 1.7 per cent, is the outlier at the other end: its house median rose $10 in a year.

An earlier edition of the same report gives a second marker. Domain's rent report for the September quarter of 2025, published on 9 October 2025, had Brisbane houses at $660 a week and units at $630, with a vacancy rate of 0.7 per cent. In the three quarters since, the house median has added $40 and the unit median $30, and the vacancy rate has slipped a further tenth of a point.

That report also showed how much a city median conceals. It listed New Farm, Teneriffe and Ascot as the dearest suburbs for houses at $1,100 a week each, and South Brisbane as the dearest for units at $775, well above the citywide figures of the time.

Brisbane's units tell a slower story. The unit median is $30 higher than a year ago, a rise of 4.8 per cent, which Domain says is the slowest annual pace in 15 months. Houses have therefore pulled away from units over the year by $20 a week.

Why Domain says rents picked up

Across the combined capitals, house rents rose $20 over the quarter, which Domain calls the strongest result in almost two years. Unit rents rose $5. The report describes the increase as stronger than the season would explain and abrupt in some cities, and calls it a step-change in how rents are being priced.

Domain gives two reasons for the timing. The first is cost: borrowing costs have risen, and owners with loans have higher holding costs to cover. The second is policy. The report says landlords moved quickly to lift asking rents where conditions allowed, as proposed changes to housing investment policy became clearer.

Behind both sits the shortage that has shaped the market for years. The ABC quotes Domain's list of causes: strong population growth, too little rental supply, an undersupply of housing, and affordability barriers that keep tenants from becoming home owners. A tenant who cannot buy stays a tenant, and the home they would have left does not come up for rent.

The vacancy column in the table shows how little slack there is. No capital has a vacancy rate above 1.2 per cent on Domain's measure, and five of the eight are at 0.6 per cent or below. Brisbane's 0.6 per cent is the tightest of the three largest cities.

Other sources agree on the direction, with different numbers. The Real Estate Institute of Queensland's report for the March quarter, published on 30 April, put the vacancy rate at 0.8 per cent for Greater Brisbane and 1.0 per cent for the Brisbane council area. The institute reports each quarter on 50 Queensland areas and regards 2.6 to 3.5 per cent as a healthy range. Domain's rate, according to a review of vacancy measures published by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute in December 2025, counts homes advertised on its own site for more than three weeks.

A market at two speeds

Domain describes the national market as splitting into two speeds. In one group, which includes Sydney, Brisbane and Darwin, rents are accelerating again. In the other, which Domain lists as Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart, affordability is limiting how much further rents can rise.

Brisbane belongs to the first group for houses and looks like the second for units. That is an unusual position, and it matters for anyone reading the headline number. A record for houses does not mean every rent in Brisbane is rising.

Brisbane has two rental markets this winter: houses that are still getting dearer, and units that have stopped.

The two-speed picture also complicates the usual link between vacancy and rent. Adelaide and Hobart have lower vacancy rates than Brisbane, at 0.4 per cent each, and their house rents rose more slowly over the quarter. A very low vacancy rate keeps rents from falling. It does not, by itself, push them up when tenants have reached the limit of what they can pay.

What the figures cover

Domain's medians are asking rents: the prices on advertisements for homes available to rent during the quarter. They describe what a household moving now would face. They do not measure what existing tenants pay, and most tenants did not move in the quarter.

The method also shapes the number. The report's notes say capital city medians are stratified, which means the advertised homes are grouped before the middle value is taken, so that a quarter with an unusual mix of cheap or expensive listings does not distort the result.

For existing tenancies, Queensland law sets its own pace. Rent cannot be increased more than once in 12 months, and the limit is attached to the property, as the Residential Tenancies Authority explains in its summary of the changes that began on 6 June 2024. A rise in advertised rents therefore reaches sitting tenants gradually, one annual review at a time.

Other measures give different numbers because they count different things. Cotality's rental review for the March quarter put Brisbane at $745 a week for houses and $656 for units, from its own data and method. The RTA's median for the whole of Queensland, drawn from bonds lodged for new tenancies, was $600 a week for 2024-25, according to its annual report. That figure covers the state and every dwelling type, a year earlier. Each series is best compared with its own earlier readings.

For owners and property managers in Brisbane, the report draws a line between the two halves of the market. A house advertised in the June quarter met demand at a higher rent than in March. A unit advertised at more than the going rate met a market that, on Domain's median, was no longer moving up.

Kooky, from Shaka

Kooky edits Queensland Estate and builds Shaka, the payment router he made for Queensland property professionals. One payment comes in, and every agent, agency and party in the deal receives their signed share on closing date.

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